Introduction

Eclipse is an extensible framework to build modular applications, which relies on OSGi component architecture. Originally developed to provide an IDE extensible in terms of functionalities and supported languages with plugins, Eclipse can now be used as a Rich Client Platform (RCP). The success of the Java Development Toolkit (JDT) plugin has lead to the development of numerous plugins. For instance the C/C++ Development Toolkit (CDT) plugin allows developers to use it as IDE for project in C or C++ language. The use of Eclipse as a generic IDE is possible due to the notion of perspective (a perspective corresponds to a certain disposition of the graphical elements) which adapts the user interface to the kind of project.

Java Native Interface (JNI) is a programming interface to call native methods or to embed java virtual machine in native applications. JNI is often used to interact with existing native application, to add platform-specific functions, or to improve time-performance (by supposing native methods faster than java code).

Currently, when users work on a java project using JNI and native code, they have to switch between perspective, which is not practical. Another point to improve is the debugging of this kind of project, by allowing developers to follow native method calls into native code and go back.

Goals of the project

Create new or 'mixed' perspectives to manage project using C/C++ and Java

Add the possibility to follow native methods calls into native code

Work done

First step : documentation of existing work

Approaches for debugging Java and native code in Eclipse and new debug interface proposal (XDI)